CliftonStrengths: Why You Need All 34

On Oct. 25, 2018, Gallup released the new CliftonStrengths 34 Report. To celebrate this release, Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton reflects on the importance of focusing strengths-based discovery and development on all 34 CliftonStrengths.

The CliftonStrengths movement is exploding around the world. By the end of this year, 20 million people will have completed the assessment and discovered their strengths.

The assessment is especially booming with students at colleges and universities as well as with employees in workplaces. CliftonStrengths is quickly becoming the common language of human development.

This fall, hundreds of thousands of incoming freshmen completed CliftonStrengths. They had the first of what will be multiple coaching conversations with advisers throughout their years on campus. Those advisers help students harness their innate strengths and aim them toward their future careers.

When these students join the workforce, they'll find CliftonStrengths used in nearly all Fortune 500 companies, as well as organizations such as NASA, World Bank, the United Nations and the State Department. These organizations value strengths-based development because it is the perfect approach to help teams collaborate, leverage each other's strengths and achieve optimal performance.

Millions around the world know the assessment by its original name, the Clifton StrengthsFinder. It remains the first and only validated strengths assessment of its kind ever created. Gallup's book StrengthsFinder 2.0 is the bestselling business book of all time.

CliftonStrengths is quickly becoming the common language of human development.

The assessment's inventor, Don Clifton, Ph.D. (1924-2003), famously tested, experimented and developed the new science of strengths over a 50-year period. Clifton was recognized as the father of strengths-based psychology by an American Psychological Association presidential commendation. His most famous invention as a psychologist and teacher was the taxonomy of human strengths -- the 34 themes.

Gallup changed the name of his assessment from StrengthsFinder to CliftonStrengths to honor and recognize its inventor, as well as to distinguish and brand the original from a plethora of knockoffs and imitators.

Originally, users would take the assessment and receive only their Top 5 strengths from the total taxonomy of 34. They literally never knew the order of their remaining 29.

For instance, my most-used strengths at work are the combination of my No. 1 theme, Futuristic, and my No. 7 theme, Strategic. But if you were coaching me only within my Top 5, we would have missed the powerful combination of strengths that together drive my performance the most.

What we have since learned -- and what you need to know as a leader -- is that including all 34 CliftonStrengths themes in your feedback -- what I call "deep strengths" -- is infinitely more transformative and useful than just the Top 5 -- what I call "shallow strengths."

Gallup scientists and technology experts have re-engineered everything to make CliftonStrengths 34 our primary strengths offering. We are doing this because we know a person's ability to achieve excellence and get the most out of their life is directly linked to understanding, developing and aiming their strengths at outcomes that matter.

Ideally, every student, employee, team leader and executive would take CliftonStrengths 34, which includes the brand-new CliftonStrengths 34 Report, expert coaching and strengths curriculum.

It changes the world even more.

Watch Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton talk about the importance of going deeper with CliftonStrengths 34 at the 2018 CliftonStrengths Summit.